Oct. 13, 2014 Article by: Jaden Metivier

Martin Luther King Jr. Still Lives!

The Life of Martin Luther King Junior.

Where King Was Born And Raised?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. King had Irish ancestry and was raised in a strict home, grounded in faith. King saw his father's proud and unafraid protests against
external image images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRH9R9qjYF7p9tUEhXNGFj8SOMtEeia9jEXlPLYB02fT85EVB94Hgsegregation, such as Martin, Sr. refusing to listen to a traffic policeman after being referred to as "boy" or stalking out of a store with his son when being told by a shoe clerk that they would have to move to the rear to be served. King suffered from depression much of his life. As a young boy, he felt some resentment against whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his family, and his neighbors often had to endure in the segregated South. At age 12, shortly after his maternal grandmother died, King blamed himself and jumped out of a second story window, but survived.

Kings Achievements And Goals

Martin Luther King Jr. skipped both the ninth and the twelfth grades and entered Morehouse College at age fifteen without formally graduating from high school. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. King then began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and received his Ph.D degree on June 5, 1955. At age 25 he became a Christian Pastor. King's faith was strongly based in Jesus' commandment ofloving your neighbor as yourself , loving God above all, and loving your enemies, praying for them and blessing them.Martin Luther King was a strong force in the Civil Rights Movement. King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971, and a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor. A county was rededicated in his honor. A memorial statue on the National Mall was opened to the public in 2011 Just to name a few. He promoted non-violent activism, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.
The Movement
In March 1955, a fifteen-year-old girl from Montgomery, named Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in enforcing Jim Crow laws. A law in the U.S. South that enforced racial segregation King was on the committee from the Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case. Colvin was pregnant and unmarried,so they wanted to wait for a better case to argue. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, urged and planned by Nixon and led by King, soon followed.The boycott lasted for 385 days, and the situation became so tense that King's house was bombed.King was arrested during this campaign, which concluded with a United States District Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses. King's role in the external image KDP8omwGZrIl6cARqeebX-S1UQW6oLTVNT22TqbGal56fyKUKx7xsV-biBHFxix3ZPh2ytnPSkdgWcHbFnpTSweK45dSWnWG36N6yYhrFqgZr8BpAozGBZPEjZRveAflMgbus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement. King had a role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the South and other areas of the nation, as well as the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. On August 28, 1963, the historic March on Washington drew more than 200,000 people in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. It was here that King made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, emphasizing his belief that someday all men could be brothers. King was the youngest man to received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He donated the prize money, valued at $54,600, (about 400,000 today) to the civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King telling people about his,
“I Had A Dream Speech’’ on August 28, 1963
at the Lincoln Memorial during the March On Washington.

I Had A Dream Speech
King's Death
At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, a shot rang out as King stood on the Lorraine Motels second-floor balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. The bullet entered through his right cheek, smashing his jaw, then traveled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder. After emergency chest surgery, King was pronounced dead at St Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 p.m. Later James Earl Ray would be convicted of his murder.
external image images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQatQpTtiqG2ZTNrtXBaTn05lU33LLgpKt3irlNR_4AxPmXG1H2The assassination led to a nationwide wave of race riots in Washington D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, Louisville, Kansas City, and dozens of other cities. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared April 7 a national day of mourning for the civil rights leader.




James Earl Ray

external image U9SvEUfo3qY4_P1aq32ufbGB1HLIin8YHySv7bX74CFpN3MH_iqTVqHneBgk9sLf4ZddwmAP_5EGINhhx26mRKwNtRjc1YMADHsTuKmVOWdK_Ja9Hms5noK4fbSg-2cRPg
Weapon used to kill King.

Gone But Not Forgotten

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and social activist, who led the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. He continues to be remembered as one of the most lauded African-American leaders in history, often referenced by his 1963 speech, "I Have a Dream." Years after his death, he is the most widely known African-American leader of his era. His life and work have been honored with a national holiday, schools and public buildings named after him, and a memorial on Independence Mall in Washington, D.C .
King is widely considered the most influential leader of the American civil rights movement. He fought to overturn Jim Crow segregation laws and eliminate social and economic differences between blacks and whites. He played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the South and other areas of the nation. Martin Luther King Jr. was a visionary leader who was deeply committed to achieving social justice through nonviolent means. Even though James Earl Ray assassinated him he will never be forgotten about what he did for us, for the world he changed it. Forever.



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